Beast-Tamer: Limitless Evolution

It's About To Start...

Osho woke up with a start, the sound of his alarm washing the sleep out of his eyes. If there was one thing Osho liked and hated about himself, it was how easily he could wake up. He liked it because he didn't need to waste extra minutes waking up, but hated it because he found it hard to go back to sleep whenever he woke up accidentally.

Still, he was dazed for a few seconds before his hand moved subconsciously to turn off his alarm.

He exhaled before craving his neck to see a four-winged bird sleeping soundly on his chest. He chuckled slightly as a sense of fondness filled him, and he thought back to the previous day.

When he discovered Gale's absurd flying speed, he wasn't satisfied and proceeded to run a bunch more tests with the bird, and the results were satisfactory, to say the least, Gale was simply something else.

Besides his absurd speed, Gale's beak was also incredibly tough. He knew this because when he was thinking of how to test Gale's attack potency, the bird sensed his intentions and proceeded to fly super fast beak-first into a tree... and leave a hole in it.

After that, Osho and Gale spent hours testing... well, it was more like Osho spent hours testing Gale. This served two purposes, seeing what Gale was capable of and improving the feedback of their bond, allowing them to transfer their intentions to each other faster.

As such, they went well into the night with their tests, and only when both were thoroughly exhausted did Osho decide to call it a day. He sighed.

'Well, time to get ready, I guess.' He thought and reached over and gently nudged Gale. It yielded no results at first, but after a few more tries, the bird slowly woke up.

Osho smiled as he sensed his beast's drowsy state and scooped him up in his hands before deciding to get ready for the day. He brushed, took a shower, and gave one to Gale, which thoroughly woke the bird up and left it filled with complaints.

The complaints stopped when Osho gave him a bowl full of food, which Gale happily dug into, and Osho had his breakfast as well. When this was done, he tidied up his apartment, had Gale settle on his shoulder, and set out.

He went to the side of the apartment building, got his old bicycle, and rode to school. It was early in the morning, but there were still more than a few people moving around already in this part of the city, it wasn't odd considering that the people here had to hustle to earn a living, so they were bound to set out early just like Osho.

Gale looked at the people curiously but eventually got bored and just settled on Osho's shoulder, snuggling against his neck. The gesture made Osho smile a little, but he said nothing and continued riding.

Soon, he arrived at his school gate and sighed. The entrance to the Bright Spark Academy was as well-kept as always.

His gaze lingered on the entrance for a few more seconds before he sighed and rode in.

Bright Spark Academy had quite the reputation as one of the best schools within the Blooming Citadel.

When humanity got back on its feet after the intense war with the beasts, the fact was that its structure had been changed fundamentally, as even now, humans didn't have control of entire continents and had to condense their sphere of influence into cities called Citadels.

Citadels have four main classifications. Haven-Class Citadels which were the smallest. They are self-sustaining cities with limited population and resources. They usually act as outposts or research facilities, and while small, they are still important as most act as grounds for further expansion into uncharted territory.

Then there are Bastion-Class Citadels which are around mid-tier, the Blooming Citadel is one of these. They are larger and more fortified with an established economy as well as better capabilities when it comes to defending against beasts. They are governed by local authorities but are still reliant on higher-class Citadels for support.

Above that are Dominion-Class Citadels which are massive, highly advanced cities with a significantly higher military presence and cutting-edge technology. They are centers of culture and innovation, with each one controlling multiple Bastion-Class Citadels. They often house elite academies, research facilities, and high-ranking officials.

The fourth and final class would be the Zenith-Class Citadels. They are the largest and most powerful Citadels which rule over vast territories. They are home to the most influential figures, from top-tier beast tamers to government leaders. Moreover, they are nearly impenetrable and boast the greatest defenses, research, and economic systems.

Within the Blooming Citadel, the Bright Spark Academy had a good reputation. However, they had been falling off recently.

The reason was that the amount of recognition an Academy received was based on the beast tamers they produced, and if they produced beast tamers with high potential, then they would receive greater recognition. However, the opposite was the case, if they failed to produce sufficiently talented beast tamers, the recognition they received would drop, and recognition was so important because more recognition meant greater resources.

Osho found this system to be flawed as in the first place, the Academy had no control over the potential beast tamers had as the potential of a beast tamer depended largely on the potential of their beast, and it was common knowledge that it was impossible to pick out the beast eggs that possessed high potential.

Moreover, they only had a month to train the new beast tamers before the college entrance exams. So Osho found it dumb, but he wasn't in any place to complain.

As he rode his bike through the school grounds, he noticed more than a few excited stares and gestures from the younger students. Which was to be expected. After all, it was after one entered their final year of high school that they would be eligible to obtain their first beast.

As a result, they were bound to become excited when they saw one of their seniors with a beast.

Osho didn't care all that much and parked his bike near the entrance of the senior building, it was still quite early, so he hadn't seen many of his peers, but the few he had seen had their beasts with them.

He made his way to his class and stepped in. It was fairly empty with only a few of his classmates there. They didn't pay him much attention as they all seemed focused on tending to their beasts, which suited Osho just fine.

He sat in the back near the window and Gale hopped off his shoulder to his desk as Osho put his backpack away. He then brought out small pieces of food for the bird and fed him bit by bit, much to Gale's satisfaction.

He then used his fingers to play with the bird a little bit, and in the meantime, he let his mind wander.

Now that he had gotten his beast, there were a lot more avenues open for him, and he intended to make the best of what he had. At the moment, he had two main goals, though they were connected to each other.

His first goal was to try and evolve Gale again. Granted, he didn't know Gale's current potential, and he knew that evolving him again would be more tedious than the last time, and more expensive.

His other goal was to pass his college entrance exam and enter a high-class Beast Tamer Academy. This tied in to the first goal as the higher Gale's potential, the better his chances.

He had a vague idea of how he wanted to achieve these goals, but he wanted to see how things would play out for now.

Time passed, and more and more students filtered into the class with their various beasts.

Ellie came in as well, and Osho was a bit surprised when he saw her beast. It was an amethyst-colored snake as thick as three fingers.

"You hatched a bird!" Ellie didn't bother greeting Osho and went straight for Gale, her eyes gleaming at the four-winged avian.

"And you hatched a snake?" Osho mumbled as he looked at the snake wrapped around her neck.

"Wow, it looks pretty cool. What's its name?" She asked and Osho glanced at Gale who was staring at Ellie curiously.

"Gale. His name is Gale." Osho answered and Ellie's eyes gleamed, she seemed to be stopping herself from carrying him.

"What about the snake, what's their name?" Osho asked in return and Ellie was snapped out of her reverie, she rubbed the snake's head which caused it to close its eyes and flick out its forked tongue, seemingly in enjoyment.

"Her name is Sugil! It's a shortened form of the crystal Sugilite. I thought about naming her Amethyst but that seemed too obvious, and I wanted her name to be more unique, so I named her Sugil." Ellie beamed and Osho blinked. She had put far more thought into the name of her beast than he did.

"So what can Gale do? Wind manipulation I assume?" She asked curiously and Osho nodded.

"Pretty much. He's also pretty fast. Let me guess, Sugil can control crystals?" Osho enquired and Ellie nodded with pride.

After that, they continued to chat and let their beasts interact. The snake and bird seemed quite curious of the other, but they refrained from any form of contact and simply moved around each other, observing.

Eventually, the class was filled with students, and it was quite lively due to the new beasts, some people were struggling to keep their beasts under control, no doubt due to having low compatibility with them, but there was some order at least.

It was at this point that their teacher stepped into the class. Everyone quietened. Her stride was as confident as ever and her beautiful face was stern as usual. Her red salamander was at its place on her shoulder, its eyes calmly analyzing everything that came into its line of sight.

Their Teacher, Mrs Jane, was a woman who didn't tolerate any sort of misbehavior, everyone in the class had learned that the hard way one way or the other.

However, when she walked in, they all noticed something that took their interest. In her hands was an interesting-looking item. It seemed to be comprised of two parts, one part looked like some sort of cube-shaped contraption with a lot of buttons and sensors, and embedded on top of it was a clear crystal.

The second part of the contraption looked like a metallic plate with a diameter of 1 meter. Something like that should have been considerably heavy, but Mrs Jane carried it in one hand like it was nothing.

She reached the front of the class and placed the device on her desk before folding her arms and looking at everyone in the class with a scrutinizing gaze.

After a few seconds, she nodded.

"You all hatched your beasts without any mishaps, good." She nodded and everyone let out a breath they didn't know they were holding. She'd been their teacher for years, but they couldn't get over that gaze of hers.

"Now then, there are a few things we need to address at this point. So pay attention." When she said this, everyone straightened, Osho included. He had a feeling he'd know most of the information she was about to reveal as he had done extensive research before now, but he still wanted to hear what she had to say.

"Now that you all have hatched your beasts, you have a little over a month before your college entrance exam, meaning you have that much time to improve yourselves as much as possible and grow stronger." Everyone nodded at this information.

"Naturally, the school is going to assist you all in this as once every three days, you will be taken out of the Citadel into the wilderness to train and deal with beasts, under supervision of course." This garnered a stronger reaction. The Citadels were quite literally the safe havens of the human race, and most, if not all of the students had never left the Blooming Citadel in their lives, so the idea of suddenly leaving it to train the wilderness that was filled with dangerous beasts was daunting, to say the least.

"You can, however, drop out and not participate in the training program. After all, even with our supervision, the threat of death is still real, so if you want to, you can drop out. There is no shame in doing so to preserve your life." This generated some mixed reactions. Some people felt relieved knowing that they could drop out, others seemed to disdain the idea, while some showed no reaction.

"However, before anyone makes a choice, I'd like for everyone to have the potential of their beast tested. That way, you can make the choice you think best at that point." When she finished,everyone seemed to be on board with the idea. After all, if their beasts had high potential, then they would have a higher chance of getting through the training. Moreover, they could receive better treatment.

On the other hand, if their beast had low potential, they could drop out. Simple as that.

Seeing as everyone seemed to be aboard, Mrs Jane nodded and got a list with everyone's names in alphabetical order.

"Ana, step forward with your beast please."